Life through the eyes of a nerdy, gay, screenwriter, gear-head, soccer supporter, and (former) eternal college student.

Breaking into the Fantastic

One gigantic thing I get super hung up on is realism. I’m a huge science geek and that presents a minor problem with being a(n) (aspiring) science fiction writer. I go to my quantum physics notes and reference pages/books as often (if not more often) that I reference my actual plot and arc notes whenever I work on a new project. It is something I get really hung up on. The big challenge one of my friends gave me sounded simple enough at the time: Come up with something fantastic and stop worrying so much about realistic science or syncing things up with modern theory. Yeah that’s a total cake walk…….

So I started out on it. Within 5 minutes I looked at what I had written down and something like this occurred:

It is MUCH more difficult for me to write something or work on something (original) without justification for the choices I am making. Of course, when I write a spec of a show, I can justify anything simply because it is someone else’s idea to tell stories in XYZ Specific Universe with ABC things possible. I have no problem with that. The problem is that I at least need to justify how I can get away with certain things or else I lose my mind.

Naturally, this leads to a problem when attempting to meet said challenge. How do I justify and do things that right now, math and science tell us are not possible? Well the easy way out is saying “This is to entertain people and most people won’t take the time to research whatever thing just came up…” but that’s just so……….. unsatisfying. How can I get away with [example removed as it is part of an actual project I am working on] and not have people stop and say, “wait a minute… Screw this. There’s no way that can happen,” and give up on everything I worked so hard to create? The most satisfying way of justifying this is the old: BECAUSE. I. SAID. SO.

You really wanna go?

Sometimes, it is fun to break the laws of physics in a story. Sometimes, it is exciting to break linear reasoning or just say “Fuck it” altogether and defy reason completely in order to establish a new “reason” from a said structure. As long as it is done confidently and the story is worthy of such egregious defiance, people will watch or read or listen and more importantly, they will enjoy.

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Justin Plasket is something between an overly optimistic daydreamer and a pragmatic thinker. He believes the term for that is “Aspiring Writer.” Studying Creative Writing at Iowa. He plays several brass instruments (with varying degrees of success) and greatly enjoys food.

On a more intimate level, Plasket pretends he has a sense of humor but winds up telling half jokes or stuttering or whatever and effectively making himself into an ass. He has trouble spelling the word “Restaurant” and has spelled it “resturaunt,” “restaraunt,” “resturant,” and “restau-fuck this. How do you spell… a-u-r-a-n-t. Thank you!”

He crosses his big toe over his second toe because it is “comfortable” though the world knows this is just his attempt to justify any future “toe tapping” that might occur. He is very paranoid of accidental toe tapping as he actually has yet to wikipedia how it is done and therefore, he needs a good excuse should a situation ever arise (ahem, Larry Craig) where he might need a speedy exit from said situation. He also farts himself awake on very rare occasions. Yes, exactly like you have seen your dog do (or the Family Guy gag). Exactly. Like. That. (This is not a joke, actually.)

His life currently seems firmly planted in the soil and cement of Iowa City but possible vacation spots where one could find Justin are: Libya, North Korea, and Detroit. He likes to travel cheap and apparently no place offers better deals. Albeit he does hate long flights so all but Detroit are out. He hopes to one day move to LA and actually get paid to type and spell and punctuate and not use run on sentences. Until then, he is known as a “student” at the (Ed. sorry, Raygun, I’m stealing your clever shirt idea.) Iowa University in Idaho City, Ohio. (Ed. Nope? No laughs? I guess it is only funny on t-shirts.)

He is an avid science fiction fan although he has somehow managed to avoid conventions and nerdfests (Ed. That is a blatant lie) and yet he has coined the term “Nerdgasm.” Jeri Ryan once tweeted him a winky face (like this: ":-P") and he takes that as a sign of good things to come.

On a more serious note though, I try and be the best human being I possibly can. I fall far short of that mark every single day but it is something I strive for and chase after. I tell/write stories and enjoy entertaining people with them. I swear too much and find some pretty awful jokes to be utterly hilarious but at the end of it all, I am just an average college student who now has this blog thing that really has no aim.